Solo Mother

What do you want your children to learn? Think about it, solomothers!

by christina on October 22nd, 2007

Marketing is a powerful tool that can be used at the side of good or evil. I had a lovely lunch with a new friend today, who confessed that this whole environment thing had him genuinely worried. Global warming! No water for Atlanta in 80 days! Smith Island is disappearing. New Orleans wiped off the map. England’s underwater. Birds migrating north.

Knowledge is power. And how people manipulate that knowledge is powerful stuff, indeed. There is some volleying back and forth between Big Business and Environmental Interests, a little bit of ‘he said she said’, each group blaming the other for the hysterical tone of denial or doom. Who is right? I’m siding with those who want to save the Earth from the harm we humans have done, because that’s the side that’s important to me.

Never underestimate the power of marketing, and advertising. If you’re a thirty- or forty-something year old kid at heart, and you have a real aversion to throwing trash on the sidewalk, you might connect it to an ad campaign they did way back when, with Woodsy Owl: Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute.

When in Paris the summer before last, my kid came into the room babbling about how batteries leaked poison into the earth and we had to get all the batteries and go to the supermarket right away to get rid of them properly. What on earth was he talking about? Seems there was a rather powerful, animated commercial urging children to get into the swing of things and help recycle batteries. If anyone can find me a copy of it, I’d be much obliged.

If recycling, energy consumption and water conservation are important issues to you, the best thing you can do for your family is to incorporate these tenets into your way of life. Find a place to stack recycling sorting bins. Purchase new appliances with the highest Energy Star rating that you can afford… it will save you tons of money over the life of the machine in your energy bills. Take short showers, capture grey water, turn off the faucet when you brush your teeth. Switch to fluorescent bulbs instead of incandescent.

Make these things important to your family. Educate your children about what they can do to make the world a little greener. I can’t believe we, as single mothers, would fight so hard for a better life in the here and now for our children, and not fight equally hard for their futures.

And if you have to put in a new roof? Go Green.

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POSTED IN: activism